Ask UL: Cooking Safety

Thanksgiving and Christmas are the number one and two days of the year for cooking fires

Cook your holiday feast without incident (save for maybe a disappointingly
dry turkey or lumps in the gravy) and you can add one more item to your
gratitude list as you sit down around the table: You didn’t set the house on
fire.

Thanksgiving is the number one day for home cooking fires in
the United States, followed by Christmas, according to the National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA). There are more than three times as many home cooking fires on Thanksgiving as a typical day of the year.

Dear UL: How can I
avoid a cooking fire on Thanksgiving or Christmas?

Cooking is a leading cause of home fires — in fact, there
are more than 50,000 fires in ovens and ranges every year — and many happen
because of unattended cooking. You don’t have to sit there and watch your
Christmas cookies bake. But if you do leave the kitchen for a moment — maybe
you’re cooking dinner and your guests arrive — take an oven mitt or hot pad
with you to remind you to go back into the kitchen. Greet your guests, get them
seated, and say: “I’m going to go check on dinner.” They won’t mind because
they want to eat. That’s why they came over.

Also keep excess food wrapping like bread wrappers and
Styrofoam meat trays away from the gas flame or electric burner on your stove.
And don’t cook wearing loose-fitting clothes that could dangle over the stove.

Dear UL: How do
cooking fires usually happen, and what should I do if a fire does break out in
my kitchen?

What usually happens is a pan or pot will boil over and get grease
down into the gas, or even electric, burner. The heat ignites the grease, and
the fire burns up the side of pan, then into the pan and you end up with a pan
fire.

If that happens, don’t pick up the pan and run outside with
it — that’s the most dangerous thing you can do. As you’re running with the
pan, whatever is in it spills, and you’ve got a little fire on your kitchen
floor, a little fire in your hallway, a little fire by your back door. Now
you’ve got three or four fires to deal with, and that’s when you need to call
the fire department. When fire isn’t contained,
you’ve
got to call 911.

Instead of running with the pan, turn off the stove, put the
lid on the pan and let the fire die out from lack of oxygen. If you don’t
happen to have a lid for the frying pan, slide another lid or a metal cookie
sheet over the pan, being careful not to get your hands near the flames.

If you see a fire in the oven, don’t whip open the oven
door. Instead, turn off the oven and keep the door closed. If you can keep the
fire from getting more oxygen, you’ve got the problem solved.

It may sounds strange, but don’t use your oven for storage.
People say, “Oh, I’ve got all these cookbooks, and I’ve got company coming,
I’ll just stick them in the oven.” But you forgot you asked Aunt Sally to bring
over her sweet potato casserole, and she needs to warm it up, so she turns on
the oven. Nobody expects to find cookbooks or paper plates or bread stored in
the oven, but people do it.

This time of year, pretty much everyone is in a hurry. It
might not be on your list, but taking a few minutes to think about safety can
make your holidays much happier.